October’s Steam Next Fest 2026 has kicked off and as ever there’s a ridiculous number of RPGs and strategy games with playable demos. As normal there’s my article with a few of my picks as to what I think is worth a go.
One trend that is frankly starting to get a bit tiresome is the sheer number of projects that are relying so heavily on AI. I’m not here to say that developers should or shouldn’t be using AI tools. In many instances they can be a very useful adjunct to actual development work, particularly for small teams and individual developers on a tight budget.
But if the whole identity of a game (the art, the thumbnails, the way it’s presented etc) is just handed over to some form of non-human intelligence then that project is just no longer interesting to me.
For this edition I’ve selected 12 projects which, first of all, felt more authentic to me than a number of the others and also games that I was already familiar with and had been following for some time. As always, let me know what you think.
Code of The Savage
- Developer: Geoff Jones
- Release Date: TBA
- Steam: Code of The Savage
Starting with a non-turn-based RPG, why? I don’t know, maybe because of its delicious pixel-art style. Getting flung off a slave ship and washing ashore in chains is a very effective way of setting the tone for Code of The Savage. Geoff Jones’ dark fantasy RPG is clearly inspired by Ultima VI and VII and gives you a hand-crafted kingdom to explore via conversation, combat and a few very questionable choices.
The inhabitants of Daneth go about their business, they work, they eat, they sleep and they have their own lives which are in turn affected by your actions. Combat is real time and you don’t leave the exploration map.
The Steam demo also gives you a chance to play with the magic and survival systems so you get a real taster of what the world has to offer and how it rewards the curious.
Mythical Whalers
- Developer: Kleen Fleet
- Release Date: December 2026 – Early Access
- Steam: Mythical Whalers
Your crew’s next upgrade might well come from a whale’s horn. In Mythical Whalers those trophies become elixirs which confer abilities, thus linking the hunt for the massive sea creatures to character development. Here’s one of my absolute favourites and one I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on for ages.
You’re at the helm of a ship navigating procedurally generated seas, you’re recruiting companions from all the mythical races and you’re constantly on the lookout for turn-based encounters to engage in whilst keeping your expedition supplied.
Crew members can improve or deteriorate in their traits and rival factions are available to you for trade, co-op or to simply cause you a bit of a problem. I’m keen to see how those shifting personalities and relationships might complicate an expedition; bringing down the next monster is only one of the captain’s many duties.
Fallen Starborn
- Developer: RKS Productions
- Release Date: Coming soon
- Steam: Fallen Starborn
We’ve had humanity living underground in the Fallen Starborn for thousands of years and your Moonlit Travelers are attempting the ascent back to the surface.
You’ve got a vast network of ruins and caverns to navigate, full of cosmic beasts, shortcuts and shrines. Combat is turn-based and rewards you for creating openings in your enemy’s posture and for co-ordinating your elemental spells, runes and racial abilities.
That gives party composition a very clear purpose in battle. The demo takes you into the Bleak Depths where you can try out your weapons and abilities against the wolf-like Firrelins before facing the Bloodthirsty Demon. Reclaiming the surface appears to start with a fairly aggressive entrance exam.
Tile Crawl
- Developer: UNSUNG
- Release Date: Coming soon
- Steam: Tile Crawl
Six inventory slots can be a source of quite a bit of stress. Tile Crawl fills those slots with relics which get worn down as you use them and then you’re required to match your damage precisely to the enemy’s strength in order to achieve a Perfect Hit.
That may mean weakening an enemy in some cases and strengthening one in others. The boards contain explosives, allies, treasure and healing so there are a host of spatial decisions to make as well as the basic arithmetic.
You decide when to explore and when to go for a boss and the later runs are obviously enhanced by the various unlocks and upgrades. If you’re the type of player who likes to get the most efficient solution out of a finite set of resources then this tactical roguelite should be right up your street.
Ghost Justice
- Developer: Centurion Developments
- Release Date: Q1 2027
- Steam: Ghost Justice
The new project from the team behind Forgotten But Unbroken is a proper Jagged Alliance throwback and the demo they had available during this Next Fest really does make it look like something worth playing.
Miami 1992: a police raid has located a cartel lair and a corrupt lawyer is on the move to get out to Mexico. Those are the two demo missions in Ghost Justice. Centurion’s tactical is all about intel, co-ordinated teams and attacks from multiple angles with spotter/sniper teams being a key way of taking out the important targets.
Stealth and ambush are both viable ways of running a situation and keeping it under control until you’re ready to go to the guns. The fun bit is of course getting a number of teams in place for one big operation and if your idea of a good tactical game is the moment just prior to the plan going in, that’s the bit you’re after.
Medium Rare
- Developers: Payne Robinson, Peter Tinaglia, Giovanni Fim
- Release Date: January 2027
- Steam: Medium Rare
Dinner is a very unpleasant subject in Medium Rare. Cannibalism has become an industry, your wife has been taken to a meat processing plant and the escape route takes you up a mountain which is populated by cannibals, infected humans and mutant animals.
It’s a turn-based survival crawler where every expedition is a calculation; how much ammo do you spend in the dice based gun fights, how much useful stuff do you squeeze into your tiny inventory and then do you extract or do you go for another floor? The parts you bring back home improve your gear and your character so extraction can still be a way of moving the rescue forward.
The devs put the demo at around 80 minutes which is more than enough time to think about what you’re having for lunch.
Save the Forest
- Developer: Jens Arvidsson
- Release Date: November 18, 2026
- Steam: Save the Forest
Knowing what an enemy is going to do next changes the feel of the battle. Save the Forest tells you pretty much what the enemy is going to do right at the outset and every unit has a very simple sequence: move, then attack.
The real challenge is in where you place your villagers as they go up against the corruption being spread by the evil circus master.
Between fights you can spend your coins on recruits or upgrades, forcing you to make a choice between a small but very well developed squad and a bigger one. It’s set in the woods with a frog merchant and horse racing gnomes amongst other things but the tactical issue is the same: who goes on the next square?
Archrebel Tactics
- Developer: Ularis Badler
- Release Date: TBA
- Steam: Archrebel Tactics
Set aside a proper evening for Archrebel Tactics (the dev reckon it’ll take 6-8 hours for the demo’s standalone mission). It’s very much in the Rebelstar/Laser Squad vein with the standard action points and grid movement, with a whole host of additional systems thrown in including stamina, morale, localised injuries and equipment upgrades.
Your initial 4 soldiers can grow into a full 12 and there are 10 unlockable human classes to choose from to build your squad in. You can also pick from 4 different starting equipment kits which will give you a different set of tools to work with.
The demo is in Iron Mode (it wipes the save at the start of each turn) so it’s definitely worth thinking about what you’re going to do before you commit.
Zodiac Legion
- Developer: Studio Draconis
- Release Date: Q4 2026 – Early Access
- Steam: Zodiac Legion
The knight standing next to you is part of your defence in Zodiac Legion. Your adjacent allies will boost each other’s capabilities in combat, making formation a very important part of the turn-based battles. One of the project I’m following for a long time now, and they just updated the demo.
Layered armour requires you to be very precise with your attacks or to apply enough pressure to simply overwhelm the defender. Magic of course throws all of those medieval rules out of the window with teleportation, telekinesis and walls of ice. Destructible terrain adds another dimension to your dungeon runs.
The current demo has a small campaign with dynamic missions and kingdom management. Captured knights can be ransomed or you can send a rescue party which of course has the potential to go horribly wrong and have consequences that follow you home.
Misery Dungeon
- Developer: DeadBat Studio
- Release Date: Coming soon
- Steam: Misery Dungeon
Never heard of Misery Dungeon, but look at the screen above, isn’t it stilysh enough to let you at least try the demo? And there’s another curious twitst about it because every level you gain in Misery Dungeon costs you a skill. You start with a full skill tree and progressively whittle it away as you guide the runaway princess Kern and her squire up the damned mountain.
Enemies will act when you move and it’s important to learn their behaviour in a hand-crafted dungeon whose walls and corridors can change.
There’s a strong narrative element to the journey with dialogue options and attention to the mental state of the protagonists. The demo is a standalone scenario which is designed to not spoil the main story at all, running for around 30 minutes and with 30 skills to play with.
Food Devils
- Developer: Studio Daimon
- Release Date: November 3, 2026 – Early Access
- Steam: Food Devils
Running a restaurant is the recruitment strategy in Food Devils. You’re the last chef in a ruined world and your method of recruitment is to send out adventurers to go and gather ingredients from monsters, cook the spoils and then improve your establishment in the process to attract more talent.
Each run is a tactical expedition with one Food Devil and up to four human companions (the classes and Devil Contracts having an effect on their abilities and movement).
The adventurers are randomly generated and the maps change each time so you’re always going to have to re-think your party between runs. There’s also the element of relationships with the Devils to keep you occupied at home. In essence the menu is the way you build your next party.
The Last Hour of an Epic TO THE MOON RPG
- Developer: Freebird Games
- Release Date: 2027
- Steam: The Last Hour of an Epic TO THE MOON RPG
Start at the final dungeon is the answer to an overcrowded backlog. The Last Hour of an Epic TO THE MOON RPG gives you an already maxed out party (Neil, Eva, Roxie and Rob) and sends you straight into turn-based boss fights with abilities such as Eva’s Corn Pop and Roxie’s minigun.
Characters from To the Moon, Finding Paradise and Impostor Factory all make an appearance within the rather over the top RPG concept. Freebird has prepared about 15 minutes of original demo content in addition to the main game. It’s a reasonable stop for fans of the series whose festival schedules are already looking set to take the entire week.
If one of the demos catches your interest then do consider leaving the developer some feedback and adding it to your wishlist. Let me know which of those you’d like to see a bit more of.
